


Knight In Shining Armor

by sambharsobs



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/F, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 22:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20646830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sambharsobs/pseuds/sambharsobs
Summary: Ingrid stumbles upon her armor, four years after the war that ended the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.





	Knight In Shining Armor

**Author's Note:**

> it's been nearly seven years since I wrote something and this popped up into my mind at work fe3h is going to ruin me

The room was dull, dusty, and smelled of mold - yet there it stood, somehow absorbing the light of the afternoon sun.

My feet began to move, catching on boxes of memories I couldn't open now, before stilling. Cobwebs club to sharp edges, rust creeped across once-bright metal, light green fabric now mellow and yellowed with age clung on fraying threads.

A desperation I assumed was long-dead flooded my bones. The metallic smell of blood filled my nose, the feeling of skin tearing apart ghosted my form, and the screams of men, women and beast echoed through my ears...

Trembling fingers reached for my armor to wipe away the layers of dust on it.

Almost immediately, my eyes were drawn to the image embedded into the left breastplate. My fingers followed my gaze, tracing the symbol in a farcical reproduction of a reverence that was mere muscle memory now. The pride and joy that flowed through my veins, the Crest of Daphnel, the mark of House Galatea, one of the five houses that stood against the Empire and beside the King.

But what was House Galatea now? Its occupants had dwindled to just myself. In the garden, beside my mother, lay my brother, killed during the war four years ago, and my father beside them, taken away three years ago by an illness.

The land had forsaken us - the earth crumbled apart through my fingers with the same aching exhaustion of a bitch bred beyond her prime. The monsoons had abandoned us - the assault from the sun's rays pierced every inch of exposed skin like an arrow through a pegasus' hide. The people were losing themselves - ravenous eyes raked through the desolation for a glint of gold.

Galatea stood as an independent house, not by the Goddess' grace or blessings nor my own determination or oratory skills for my people, but, as I was so often reminded by the traitors from the territories surrounding mine, by the Empress' _grace_, her _kindness_, the warmth of her _heart._

What place did admiration and reverence have in the face of a land so wretched?

Over the carving, cast into the metal with a fire that I could now see was born of childish obstinacy, was yet another Crest, this time of House Blaiddyd. I had once seen the symbol as sharp black lines drawn across blue cloth, fluttering through the blood-soaked air, shuddering to stand strong against the winds of change - the flag under which we had rallied against the Empire, the symbol of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.

No longer was the land Holy, with the death of Serios sending the Gods' blessings scurrying away from us like a crowd of rats caught in a light, nor was it a Kingdom at all - the Empress' ambition had snaked through every mountain and every valley of Faerghus, swallowing the land and their occupants with the smooth gluttony of a python, the misshapen and undigested form of its meal against cold scales the only reminder that here, at one point, stood a kingdom of knights, of holy people, of a man called Dimitri…

A part of him lay in my garden, beside my brother. Thin, small fingers had slipped through blonde locks while the other hand gripped the bloodied curve of an axe bearing a wretched Crest. Blue eyes on a steel pike must be surveying a land ruled by a woman they once hated, and a soul that had been tortured enough while alive must be listlessly trapped on alien mortal plains.

The broken loyalty that I had sworn to a murdered king and decimated kingdom asked for worse than a flippant layer of dust in a forgotten room on expired land.

Two white clips with green tassels lay abandoned on the model's severed neck. The only decorational part of the costume I had donned in a play that had been doomed to end in tragedy had been a gift from a friend made when times were brighter.

Annette had always had a fascination for dressing me up in stiff clothes too tight for movement and covering me in strange-smelling powders too bright for human skin. She had slipped the clips into my palm, suggesting that they would help keep the hair off my face while I flew through tremulous winds, but her knowing smile had shown me her true intent.

I had buried her and her father in Dominic, and when I couldn't find the rest of Ashe's family, I left him beside his lover, along with tattered books with abused pages on knights and chivalry stolen from a library by nimble hands that had hoped for redemption.

Felix and Sylvain had, as they had promised so many years ago, died on the same day - slain just minutes apart by a Goddess' blade held in twisted hands that took arms against the very divine forces that had given her power. Felix had gone first, and Sylvain had followed soon after, the flirt's lust to live leaving with the sullen man's soul. They lay in the same grave, and my hands had tried to twist their rigid forms into an embrace, before shovelling dirt mixed with tears over their frozen faces.

They deserved better than lying in a pathetic land that only whispered of its Faerghus roots for fear of corporal punishment. They deserved better than a weak friend who had long forgotten the colour of their eyes and their favourite foods. They deserved better than a foolish woman's reminisce of sweeter times in a monastery that is now nothing but ash and scorched earth.

The only thing needed to complete the armor was a weapon- and for a sky knight, that was a lance, which would, as the tales that glossed over the guilt and pain and regret and loss would say, shine with justice before coming down on tyranny.

But no such tool was present, and the memory came back, back to torment me, back to sear open wounds that I had tried to heal with watered-down vulneraries-

Purple eyes had widened at the sound of her shriek, and arms browned by the sunshine of a faraway land had stilled, holding the blade that would have taken me to my friends.

She had pleaded for our lives, begged through sobs for a wounded knight and holy woman, grovelled against the heavy boot of a ruthless Empire for mercy, and we had somehow gotten it.

_"But before I am letting you go - I am requiring her weapon."_

Soft hands had desperately pressed against my aching shoulder, and from the corner of my eye, I had seen my steed take her last breath with a twitch of her hooves.

The memory of Luin clattering across marble tore through my chest with the same intensity of a hot knife tearing into a baby's flesh.

The last of my honour had been bartered for two souls.

"Do you resent me for it?"

The soft voice tore through my recall, and I spun around, grasping for a weapon that I no longer deserved to bear.

Mercedes stood a few steps behind me, her entrance masked by the sounds, sights, smells, memories and regrets of my past. I swallowed, lowering my hands, and searched for an appropriate answer.

"I could not resent you for saving my life."

Her azure frown tore through my skin sharper than a thousand axes.

"Do not pretend as though you do not know what I mean," she whispered roughly.

I looked away from her and back to the dented and corroded piece of metal I once bore with pride. Her question rang through my ears, filling up the silence with an urgency to respond, to wrench the truth from my accursed being, to tell her-

"The night of the White Heron Cup."

How tender had been the times, when my concerns had been to dance with the suitors my father had deemed appropriate, when I had frustratedly berated Sylvain for getting handsy with a girl on the dancefloor, when my heart had twisted with a schoolgirlish jealousy at the sight of her dancing with someone else-

"We went to the Goddess Tower."

I had managed to gargle out a request for her to come with me there, all while Felix knowingly smirked. My heart had relentlessly thrummed against my ribs as I held her delicate hand and rushed up stone steps. The blush across her face had sent my mind soaring with ecstasy-

"We made a promise to each other."

The promise had been preceded by a dance, her body stilling achingly close to mine, faces just inches apart, soft fingers laced through mine. I had begun to mumble a stream of apologies that she blocked with soft lips-

"Do you remember?"

Her feet shuffled and I felt her press against my back, arms slipping around my waist to hold me against her warm form, breath tickling my skin as she nodded against my neck.

Wretched heir as I was, disgraced knight as I was, worthless friend as I was, I had kept one promise still - a promise, made by two girls giddy with infatuation under the Goddess' gaze, that drove the aching limbs of two women in a lonely world towards the possibility of a happy future.

"I will stay with you forever, Mercie."


End file.
